Trivia / The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

• Adaptation Displacement: Director Ted Kotcheff had directed an earlier adaptation for ITV's Armchair Theatre in 1961.
• All-Star Cast: The film starred Richard Dreyfuss, Randy Quaid, Joseph Wiseman, and Denholm Elliott.
• Creator Backlash: After seeing the completed film, Richard Dreyfuss was so disappointed with his performance that he was afraid his career would end. He promptly appealed to Steven Spielberg to give him the role of Matt Hooper in Jaws (which he had previously turned down), hoping to secure it and be under contract before any bad press emerged. His performance wound up being nominated for Best Actor by the New York Film Critics Circle.
• Fake Nationality: Few of the major roles had Canadian-born actors in order to broaden the film's appeal to American audiences, leading to:
  • New York-born Richard Dreyfuss playing Duddy.
  • Newark-born Jack Warden playing Duddy's father.
  • Chicago-born Joe Silver playing local scrap merchant Farber.
  • Played with with Joseph Wiseman as Benjy; although raised in New York, Wiseman was born in Montreal.
  • Possibly averted with Russian-born^note albeit American resident Zvee Scooler as Duddy's grandfather; it is not specified where the character was born.
• What Could Have Been: Samuel Arkoff was approached to produce the film, but wanted to make the characters Greek.
  • Before Alan Menken got his hands on the property, Leiber and Stoller wrote the score for a musical adaptation that quickly faded away.

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